Charles’s Picks: Juneteenth Watchlist
Juneteenth is a holiday that commemorates news of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reaching Galveston, Texas in 1865, officially ending slavery in the United States. Facets’ program director, Charles Coleman, has put together a watchlist of essential Black Cinema to celebrate with this year.
The history of African American Cinema is a timeline of racism, repression and struggle contrasted with film scenes of joy, hope and artistic spirit. The prevailing idea is that the emergence of African American cinema was a strong response to the racial representation prevalent in mainstream films.
After years of struggling to fit into roles Hollywood deemed acceptable to white audiences, Black filmmakers and stars no longer had to subscribe to any particular genre, format, role or message. The momentum and progress of civil rights and the Black Power, Black Panther and more radical, militant movements energized Black artists to reclaim power over their own image. Despite the role of Hollywood, these filmmakers surpassed all expectations as they fought even more restrictions and barriers, a renaissance began to emerge.
Many of the films on this list are critical reflections on key moments in Black history and current events. They are inspirational works of art by brilliant filmmakers with many more milestones yet to come, inside and outside Hollywood.
Filmmaker: Oscar Micheaux
Within Our Gates (1919)
Body and Soul (1925)
Filmmaker: Charles Burnett
Killer of Sheep (1977)
To Sleep with Anger (1990)
Filmmaker: Spike Lee
Do the Right Thing (1989)
25th Hour (2002)
Filmmaker: Barry Jenkins
Moonlight (2016)
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
Losing Ground (Kathleen Collins, 1982)
Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, 1991)
Chameleon Street (Wendell B. Harris Jr., 1989)
Eve’s Bayou (Kasi Lemmons, 1997)
Sankofa (by Haile Gerima, 1993)
Nothing But a Man (Michael Roemer, 1964)
Girlhood (Céline Sciamma, 2015)
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (William Greaves, 1968)
Ganja & Hess (Bill Gunn, 1973)
In the Heat of the Night (Martin Ritt, 1967)
Devil in a Blue Dress (Carl Franklin, 1995)
Hale County This Morning, This Evening (RaMell Ross, 2018)
Sambizanga (Sarah Maldoror, 1972)
Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (Göran Hugo Olsson, 2011)
I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck, 2016)
13th (Ava DuVernay, 2016)
Mudbound (Dee Rees, 2017)
Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler, 2013)
Whose Streets (Sabaah Folayan & Damon Davis, 2017)
